Book Review

This book from the Nuts & Bolts team is a first on two known accounts. First, David Parker has taken over the graphic design and has applied his pleasing style to the series. Another benefit is that there are now color photos included (of the museum items). Frank Schulz, is no longer a part of Nuts & Bolts.

The second 'first' for this volume is that it covers a vehicle which is not available in a museum to measure and photograph. Since I knew this, the first thing I did was to find the scale plans.

For years, I lamented that the top of the superstructure seemed to slant to my trained eyes but no plans showed this. At first, I was saddened when I saw that these plans also suffered from this error (to me at least). However, a scrap view is included where John L. Rue has drawn the side armor with the slant.

By going over the many, over 350 photos, I was able to see this slant quite well. I used the side visor frame as a point of reference and noted the slant. Good eye guys!

All the photos of the vehicle are archival. What a collection! Jürgen has shown an eye for detail and the photos capture so many of the vehicles and their idiosyncrasies that one is left smiling at the depth of research.

As an example, to verify which unit a particular mobile gun belonged to, the license plate of another vehicle was used to confirm the allocation...sublime!

These photos are mostly clear, definitely rare, and quite useful in seeing these mobile guns in use and repair. The photos of destroyed vehicles are also revealing of details that would otherwise be hidden.

Since the Panzer IB chassis was already covered in another volume, it was not revisited here to allow more space to be dedicated to fresh material.

The second half of this 160 page book covers the SiG33 gun. Here, I was left blissful at noticing things that I never saw before. Items such as the three types of breechblocks, wheel variations, spade, rails, and a myriad of other details.

Here, there are many museum photos included of which most are in color. Best of all, there are scale plans. These are better than the scale plans I had before and are a fabulous help with the gun as used on the Panzer IB chassis, towed (horse or vehicle), or used in the Grille, Bison, etcetera.

For those that enjoy color profiles, David Parker has used John L. Rue's plans to create eleven profiles. The markings are interesting and some weathering was added to a few of the profiles.

To help with interpreting the scale plans, perspective drawings were included of the vehicle and the gun. Detail sketches are also included amongst the 28 works by John.

This book is highly recommended, even at its high US price, for every German armor library. It has all you would need to detail and correctly model the Bison as well as the SiG33 guns from Pit Road, Verlinden, Airmodel, and TMD.

Order directly from Nuts & Bolts by emailing them hfd.duske@t-online.de and using Paypal (the email address is also their Paypal account name). The price from VLS is $50.

SUMMARY

With the release of the Alan kit, as well as the Maquette and several resin conversion, there has been some interest on this vehicle. Strangely enough, not much was found other than a few photos and some old plans from Hilary Doyle.